"Of course I don't. I've seen far worse, but that doesn't mean I don't respect them for what they are capable of."
"Respect them? Surely not!"
"Of course. You don't have to like something to respect it. Have respect for your enemies. For what they have achieved, and what they are capable of, and then you will appreciate what it takes to defeat them."
They rushed aboard their craft and took their seats.
"I take it you have a full armament?" he asked Munro.
"Always."
"So what are you calling this one?"
Munro looked at him with suspicion.
"You name these craft?" Newman asked.
"How'd you know, Colonel?"
"Come on, you're a sentimental pilot that is more attached to that cockpit than you ever have been to a woman."
"I wouldn't go that far, but you're half right, although more than a few have shared it with me."
They laughed, but he was clearly being serious.
"And it's Irene, if you must know."
Taylor was shocked.
"What? Don't look so surprised. I like my women with a touch of class," he replied with a smile.
The door sealed behind them, and they were off the ground in no time, soaring out into space, where they got their first glimpse of the Kastor. She was a substantial warship, far larger than the Attila, and much more modern, too.
"What do you know about her crew?" Taylor asked Munro.
"Not a lot. Captain Lecul is in charge, her first command. I've not heard anything bad."
"But have you heard anything good?"
He shrugged as they watched three assault ships rush out from the docking bay of the destroyer. They were on approach to Irene to take up formation.
"We're the lead ship, so take us in," said Taylor.
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Newman had a look of dread on his face. It was the greatest weight off his shoulders ever when they finally left this world. He never imagined coming back. It was a hell to him that he assumed would be left for good, or nuked from orbit.
"I know that face, Corporal."
Newman tried to hide it after all that Mitch had told him.
"When I went to face Bolormaa, and I did several times, it felt like it was the end for me. It seemed like I couldn't survive it, and you know how I got through that?"
"No, Sir?"
"I just didn't worry about it. I was determined to do all that I could do, safe in the knowledge that providing I gave it my all, then whether I lived or died, I couldn't change the outcome."
"You never feared death?"
"I wouldn't say never, but I tell myself constantly that it doesn't matter. If I'm dead, well, I won't be around to worry about it."
"Unless there is life after death?"
"Do you believe that there is?"
"I'd like to think so, but I don't know."
"None of us do, so focus on the living part!" Munro yelled in a friendly fashion.
They were soon into the noxious atmosphere of the Poka. Newman had been watching the rear view display screens in the cockpit, mainly to be sure that the support from the Kastor was still with them. They were, but they soon lost visual contact as the dense cloud blocked their vision, and Munro had to move to other means to navigate.
"Why would anyone ever come to a world like this?" Munro asked.
"You kidding me? Who wouldn't want to vacation here?" Taylor sounded jovial.
Munro laughed, but it was hard for Newman to join in. The wounds of his last encounter on the surface were still deep. But it did make him think of the hundreds, if not thousands of friends that Taylor had lost over the years.
Is this how he deals with it? It has to be. Make light of everything, and find some enjoyment in it. I still can't grasp how Taylor can be smiling as we draw ever nearer to a horde of creatures that want to tear us apart.
Sommer could see the look of concern on the Corporal's face, and she knew exactly why and what he was feeling. She had lived it, too.
"It's the way we cope with it, you see. We're trained for this, we live for it, and so we learned to like it," she declared.
"Like that?"
"Danger, killing, the unknown. So long as you don't fear death, it can be exhilarating."
Newman didn't understand it, and yet she was no doubt speaking the truth. He wasn't sure he’d want to become like that. He intended to get out of the Corps as quickly as he could. He always had. He had a vision of the career and the future he wanted to live, and this wasn't it.
"Almost there, you ready for this?"
"We are, Munro, now you remember your orders?"
"Stay on the surface, batten down the hatches, and maintain proximity warning beacons up all around until I hear otherwise."
"That's right."
"You are leaving the pilot with the ship?"
"Damn right I am, Corporal. I won't make the same mistake your team did. That isn't to say it was your fault, or your Sergeant’s, but you didn't know what we know now. We will have comms repeaters set up every fifty metres. We aren't going to risk losing communication with our ride out of here. I don't anticipate any more trouble than we can handle, but on the off chance that we do, I'm not being left out there. Because this time, nobody will be coming for us."
"Here we go!"
Munro brought them in rapidly as if making a combat drop. The sudden decrease in speed caused Newman's stomach to churn, and he almost threw up. He wanted to protest at the flying, but he knew he couldn't. It seemed like he was taking excessive risks, and yet he looked completely in control. Maybe he really was that good a pilot. Taylor dropped the visor on his suit, and the others followed him.
"Go!" he yelled.
Kilic was first out the door. They hadn't landed at the canyon opening, but were hovering; a five hundred-metre drop below, and a metre gap between them and the canyon floor. Kilic leapt without hesitation, and the others followed him. Newman hesitated for just a moment. He hated heights, but he closed his eyes and jumped. He stumbled a few paces as he landed and crashed into Benik.
"What the hell!"
Newman ignored him.
"Keep moving!"
He didn't dare question Olsen after the last strike she had given him.
"You okay?" she asked Newman.
He took a breath and nodded in agreement, but his attention soon turned to the terrain around them, as he remembered where they were. Taylor rushed up onto a boulder and took aim. He fired two shots at a Varg that was perched ahead.
"Keep moving!"
Dust swirled around them, but the cover above kept the worst of it away. It was nothing like as bad as when Newman had first set food there. They continued on. For a few hundred metres there was no other sign of the creatures, although Newman had the definite feeling that they were being watched. They knew there were more of the creatures, there had to be. They continued on without opposition, the other two platoons following them deeper into the canyon and to the cave that was their target.
"Think they cleared out?" Sommer asked.
"Maybe."
"They aren't stupid, facing superior numbers, maybe they have taken a step back."
They continued on unopposed until finally the entrance to the cave lay ahead. They could barely believe their luck.
"You see, not every job has to be hard. You plan things right, do it right, have enough well armed marines, and you can do anything," Taylor declared gleefully.
Within seconds of him saying so, a bellowing scream echoed out all around them. Newman's heart almost stopped. It was a hoarse shrill designed to intimidate, and it certainly did so. They were looking in every direction for some sign of where it had come from. There were small holes and caves all along, but no sign of movement.
"Stay sharp, and stay calm!" Taylor ordered.
But that was no easy thing to do.
"We should never have come here. This place, this place is cursed," cried Benik.
"Shu
t your trap," snapped Sommer.
There was a glimmer of movement, and a Varg appeared at an opening. Mac cracked off a single and perfectly aimed shot that put it down, but moments later another appeared in its place, and more in every opening they could see. The marines did nothing for a moment as they evaluated what they were seeing. There were dozens of the creatures, and more every moment.
"Fire!" Taylor ordered.
Automatic gunfire lit up the canyon as the creatures descended on them; more and more poured out from every crevice, with hundreds now in plain sight, and more continuing to flood in. Newman's magazine was empty in seconds, and he quickly reached for another.
"They were drawing us into a trap!" he yelled.
"No shit!" replied Taylor.
They were laying down a wall of fire, but the creatures still made ground on them, and they were coming from every direction. Many were leaping from the canyon edges above them. The fire was keeping them at bay as they were slaughtered, but more and more kept coming. They couldn't keep them off for much longer.
"In to the cave!" Taylor hollered, "Come on, get inside! Newman, lead the way!"
It was their only option, as they were at risk of being completely swamped. Newman rushed on and was a few metres from the opening when two creatures leapt down to block his view. He opened fired at the first, but the other lashed at him with its claws, severing the barrel of his rifle. Its other claw came for his head. He ducked and rolled forward instinctively, missing a blow by mere millimetres that would have decapitated him. As he got to one knee, he drew his Assegai and drove it up into the creature's body. It squirmed and tried to turn back to lash out at him, but he held it down, and stabbed again.
"No time to mess around, Corporal, let's move!" Sergeant Menard shouted.
Newman drew his pistol and fired several shots at another before rushing to the cave entrance. He took up position on one of the flanks to cover the others as they hurried to get inside. He saw five marines get ripped apart at the rear, but the covering fire kept the rest away. He heard a clicking noise above and looked up. A Varg descended on him from the wall above the cave. It knocked him to the ground, and he lost his grip on both his weapons as he was crushed onto his back.
The Varg recoiled slightly to get some room to swing its deadly claws when Taylor's boot flew past his face and smashed into the beast. Its head was knocked aside, but snapped back, only to find his Assegai buried into its mouth. He pushed the body off and helped Newman to his feet. He picked up his Assegai, but as he reached for his pistol, the claw of another creature snatched at him. He backed off as Olsen weighed in with a burst of gunfire, and Taylor hauled him back.
"Keep going, further in!"
They withdrew twenty metres into the cave.
"Form up, two lines, front rank, kneel!" Taylor barked.
It sounded more like something out of an old war movie. Like they should be using muzzleloaders.
"Fire at will!"
Both ranks opened up with a devastating salvo. Thirty creatures dropped in the first moment, and as more tried to crawl over their dead and keep coming, they too fell to the guns. It went on for a full minute, and several magazines from each, until finally the horde stopped coming.
"Reload if you have to, but be ready for whatever comes next!"
A number of them were bleeding from slashes, and one marine lay dying against the wall behind them. Nobody had a word to say. Those that had been there before had expected this, and yet prayed that it would be different.
"They are getting butchered, and yet they don't stop?" Sommer asked Taylor.
"Feels familiar, doesn't it?"
"How the hell are we supposed to get out of here now? God knows how many more are out there. We can't make it across open terrain."
Taylor nodded in agreement as he reloaded his rifle.
"No, maybe we can't, but we made it this far, and we aren't going back until I know what the hell is so damn important about this place."
"The mission? This object? That's what you care about?"
"It's what we came here to do."
She didn't look too pleased.
"Stay here and hold. They shouldn't be able to cause you any trouble while you stay put."
"So long as the ammunition holds out."
"They don't know that, do they?"
"And if there are more of them in here?"
"I'll take a squad with me. Just be sure to watch your ass."
She didn't look happy about it, but there didn't seem to be many more options.
"Menard, your squad is with me!"
Chapter 13
Taylor had been leading the squad for almost an hour. There had not been a single path away from the cave they were following. The torches on their suits and rifles were the only light available. They had all started to doubt that there was anything down there.
"My god." Newman spotted a dead end doorway before them, and it was covered in Aranui symbols.
"How the hell do we open that?" Gallo asked.
A small device suddenly popped out from the wall beside them, no larger than a golf ball. It was as if it were an eye assessing them. A light beam shot out from it and passed over the whole squad, like some kind of scanner.
"What the hell? What is it?" Olsen asked.
"Irala said this was left for others to find in the event that his people fell," said Taylor.
The eye vanished moments later, once it had gathered plenty of data.
"Colonel Mitch Taylor, destroyer of Bolormaa, you may enter," a voice called out. It sounded automated.
"What, how can they know that?" Newman asked.
The vast doors began to prize apart, and a flickering projection of a single Aranui stood before them.
"Who are you?" Taylor asked.
"I am the guardian of this facility."
"How are any of you still alive here?"
"We are not. My people have gone from this world."
"Then...what are you?" Newman asked.
"I am an artificial agent of my people."
"A computer programme?"
"Yes, Colonel Taylor. You may call me Kiri."
"But you knew that I had killed Bolormaa. How could you possibly know that if you have been down here for so long?"
"I do not just protect this facility, but I gather data from the universe around me. We must understand the state of being if we are to know who can be trusted with this technology."
The hologram flickered violently, as did the lights around them.
"You are losing power?"
"Yes, the creatures that have protected this world for thousands of years have come to adapt. They burrow ever deeper below the surface and threaten to compromise this facility. Power fluctuations are already presenting problems."
"Those fucking Vargs!"
"Vargs? What are they?"
"The creatures that plague both of us on this godforsaken world."
A broken and weak signal came over their comms.
"Colonel, this...mmer. Come..."
"This is Taylor," he quickly replied.
"...ro reports...on surface...long."
"Repeat that message."
"Vargs...thousands..."
Newman's eyes widened in shock and fear as they all realised what that meant.
"The Vargs, how do we stop them?"
"I do not know. Natural predators used to keep them in check, but when Bolormaa struck this world, like she did all others, they are one of the few hunters to have been able to survive."
"There were things worse than them?" asked Newman.
"Worse? These are creatures that life has created. There is no evil in them. Not like some."
"Wow, they really did programme their personality into you, didn't they?" Taylor laughed.
"You must go, Colonel. You must help your people. Return, when you are able."
The doors began to shut, despite the fact that Taylor had so many questions.
"Sir, we should
move, now."
No words needed to be said as they sprang into action. They now knew there was no danger between there and the cave opening. They ran, and their suits provided them a great turn of speed. They covered the ground in a quarter of the time they had on their cautious descent. It wasn't long before they could hear gunfire, but it wasn't as relentless as before. Sommer looked relieved to see them storm into view, as if she had been expecting more Vargs.
"What is our situation?"
"Sir, ground attack fighters have engaged the Vargs on the surface, but they can't hold enough of them back. They will be on us before long. Thousands of them."
He looked to the opening in the cave. The odd Varg was trying its luck, and he could see the glimmer of movement further out where many more were waiting in cover.
"We can't make it through the canyon."
"No, Sir."
"Then he is going to have to come to us."
"Even if he could make it through, what about the other ships?"
"I said come to us, and I meant direct."
Sommer had no idea what he meant as he opened a comms channel.
"Munro, this is Taylor. Come in."
"I'm here, Colonel."
"I need you to do something for me."
"Anything, Sir."
"The roof of the canyon just before this cave, I want you to blow it. Take the roof down, and come down directly onto our position."
"But, Colonel..."
"But nothing. We need a way out of here, and time is not on our side. Just do it."
"I was just gonna say, Colonel, it's crazy, and I like it. Get to whatever cover you can. Munro out."
"Are you insane? Hitting the canyon with missiles? You could bring this whole cave right down on our heads."
"Yeah, Lieutenant, and if we stay here, we're gonna get ripped apart by a thousand Vargs. We can’t stay here, and we can't make it through there." He pointed to the canyon.
"Everyone take cover. We've got missiles incoming!"
They did as ordered. Newman found himself beside the Colonel.
"Is life always this dangerous around you, Sir?"
"Pretty much," replied Sommer angrily.
More shots rang out as the few creatures trying to sneak inside were taken down. Moments later an explosion rang out, and it was quickly followed by eight more in rapid succession.
Beyond Earth- Civil War Page 19